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Palestinian Children Flirt with Death
(Baltimore Sun) Mohammed al-Najar, 12, of Gaza died last week doing what many children do when the shooting starts - he rushed to the masked gunmen, excited by the action, the noise, the danger. Israeli army commanders complain that militants use the boys as human shields, but the children often run to the gunmen on their own, against the orders of their parents - the result of a breakdown in the traditional authority of the Palestinian family. Mahmoud Youssef Abu Saleh, 12, says, "Sometimes children go because they want to be martyred." Those who participate "become big men" in the neighborhood.